The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, its history and the team behind it.
Opened in 1896, electrified in 1921.
The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway (Welsh: Rheilffordd y Graig) opened on 1 August 1896. It is a 778 feet (237m) long funicular railway, and is the second longest funicular railway in the British Isles. Since November 1987, the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway has been a Grade II listed structure.
The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway opened in 1896, operating via a water balance system until electrification in 1921.
The unique design of the undulating track and tilted carriages is the work of George Croydon Marks. A man who played a key role in several projects during the golden age of funicular construction. He would later make his name in politics as Lord Marks, the liberal peer.
The carriages are brought to the summit at a stately 4 miles per hour. They are powered by a powerful motor and high-tensile steel cables supported by a sophisticated electronic safety system. At the midpoint of the journey, the railway ventures through a deep cutting, where 12,000 tons of rock was excavated to allow the winding footpath to cross via a series of bridges overhead.
Constitution Hill was the Victorian predecessor of our modern-day theme parks, and is still one of the areas most popular attractions. The visitors to the Victorian ‘Luna Park’ accessed the hilltop recreation area via the funicular cliff railway, and a century later visitors continue to retrace their ancestors steps via this wonder of Victorian engineering.
Today, just as it was a century ago, there’s plenty of fun for all the family at the summit. Once you have taken the train up Constitution Hill, there’s the Camera Obscura and the cafe and restaurant during the day, and themed parties and events in the evening.
To find out more about the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway come and visit us, we’re open throughout the year. If you have any questions, please call us on 01970 617642, we look forward to hearing from you.
Image: Aberystwyth and Cardigan Bay from the railway circa 1960. Image credit – TBC.
Aberystwyth Cliff Railway is operated by Constitution Hill Ltd, a registered charity with the trustees all volunteers from the local community.
As a non-profit organisation, we put all of our profits back into ongoing restorative projects. Every visitor who rides the train, or buys a coffee, helps us to fund this continuing programme. In recent years, this has resulted in great strides being made towards restoring Constitution Hill to its former glory.
Recently, this has included a series of works to make the whole site accessible to all, including parking provision for adapted vehicles, ramps at our lower station, a lift at our upper station and wheelchair, pram and pushchair friendly pathways throughout the site, including to the Camera Obscura.
In terms of restoration, some financial resources have been generated through the securing of heritage grants. Whilst our largest project, the construction in 2005 of ‘Y Consti’, our cafe/restaurant and gift shop, was built thanks to Objective One funding.
We would also like to thank ‘Enfys’, a charity based in North Wales, whose grant paid for much of the display work and educational resources around the site.
If you would wish to make a donation towards our efforts, please contact Alun Davies at Constitution Hill Ltd, Cliff Railway House, Cliff Terrace, Aberystwyth, SY23 2DN, or call us on 01970 617642, or email us at info@
Thank you for visiting our website, and we hope to see you on the hilltop in the near future.
Regards,
The Constitution Hill Team.
Telephone: 01970 617642
c/o, Alun Davies, Constitution Hill Ltd, Cliff Railway House, Cliff Terrace, Aberystwyth, SY23 2DN.
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
Accept settingsHide notification onlySettingsWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy